3/31/2013

A blessed Easter Sunday to all.
Today is a reminder not only of the conquering of life over death, but of an opportunity of personal renewal for each of us. The message of Easter is more than the just the physical resurrection of Christ Jesus, but one of hope and spiritual renewal for each of us. It is the assurance that each of us has the opportunity to live a life of peace and comfort, on a spiritual level, if we choose to accept it, and develop a personal daily relationship with God.
The Gift of Easter is not material wealth, or some assurance that you are shielded from the difficulties of life that everyone else must face. It is the knowledge that there is Someone beside you through both the good and bad things that life throws at each one of us.
Life is in session 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for each and every one of us. There is nothing that happens to us, good or bad, that hasn’t happened to others. Though each of us like to see themselves as “terminally unique”. That the problems or pain we face are unique. Thus, we are destined to face our challenges alone. The truth is that we share our experiences, good and bad, with countless others. The good news is that we have the opportunity, on a daily basis, to renew our relationship with God. We don’t have to face life alone.
My experience is that, when I am actively seeking and maintaining a relationship with God, I experience a lot more things, what some would call “coincidences”, and what I call “God experiences”, which show me the path I should take. They come in the form of random meetings with people, an unexpected phone call, and countless other things.
I celebrate the resurrection of Christ precisely because it is a reminder that each day, for each one of us, is a virtual death and resurrection. We die each night and are reborn each morning, given the gift of a new day to renew our relationship with our God, our family, our friends, and others whom we are given the opportunity to meet. We have the opportunity each day - one day at a time - to be the kind of person that God wants each of us to be. Not to be recognized, or exalted to massage our egos, but to improve spiritually each day. Our spiritual well-being is contingent not only on faith, but through our actions. Being “in service” to others - daily. Giving money to charities is one way. It might even make you feel good. But I have heard it said once that “God can’t cash out-of-state checks in Heaven”. There is no replacement for action. It can be volunteering at the local food bank or homeless shelter. But, it can also be as simple as mowing the lawn for an elderly or disabled neighbor, providing transportation to the store for someone whose car has broken down. There are countless opportunities for service right in you own neighborhood. Think of how our community relationships have broken down because our views on service consist of writing a check, while there are opportunities to be in service all around us right in our own neighborhoods and towns.
The goal of these things is not to become pious, or to become spiritually perfect (an impossibility), but that we claim spiritual progress on a daily basis. To knowingly try to do what we know is the right thing to do on this day, with the knowledge that if we fail, we get right with God, to actively make amends to whomever we have hurt, be it through word or deed, and to forgive those individuals who may have wronged us, as soon as possible.
Jesus of Nazareth showed us the way. His life, death, and resurrection are a blueprint for each one of us to follow on a daily basis. Not only to love one another from afar, but that we demonstrate that love through our actions, words, and deeds.
Jesus said: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” How much easier is it that I give each day, just a small part of my time, to those friends or strangers as a part of my daily relationship with God? Even if I fail, as I do, the lesson of the resurrection, for me, is that I have a brand new opportunity, each day, to renew my relationship with my Creator, and to try to live the life that he desires for me and for each of us.
Have a Wonderful and Blessed Easter Filled With Opportunities For Service!

3/27/2013

President Obama's pick of Gina McCarthy to replace Lisa Jackson to head the Environmental Protection Agency is, as political strategy, a cunning move. McCarthy has all of the ideological values on the environment of Obama, along with ties to some of the more prominent names in the GOP. How do I know that she is a left-wing environmental hack? Enviro-wackos absolutely love this pick.

The Wall Street Journal notes that McCarthy has been a "willful regulator" as one of Lisa Jackson's top lieutenants at the EPA, saying "Ms. McCarthy has been integral in abusing laws that were written decades ago in order to achieve climate goals that Congress has rejected, all with little or no political debate. Someone should ask her about her antidemocratic politics at her confirmation hearings."Her penchant for legislating from her desk at the EPA is perfectly in line with Obama's "if Congress won't act" on Cap and Tax, "I will". Obama using Executive Orders to bypass Congress, or the EPA issuing new regulations (laws) is a distinction without much difference. The goal is to ram through as much regulation as possible without any debate.

San Joaquin Valley, California

The long-term effects and unintended consequences are of no concern to these far-left enviro-wackos. Just as the protection of the non-native "delta smelt" in California's agricultural San Joaquin Valley has devastated farmers' ability to get enough water to irrigate their crops, creating a man-made dustbowl, the affect that the EPA's edicts will have on the energy industry are of little to no concern to them.

Water protest - San Joaquin Valley, CA

The problem for the GOP is that McCarthy has ties to one of the main movers and shakers in the establishment-side of the Party. McCarthy was an appointee of then Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The Romney that gave the Bay State RomneyCare, which became the blueprint for ObamaCare, also appointed a left-wing environmentalist as his "Green Quarterback" on environmental isssues.With Rino's currently holding the power in the GOP, it is unlikely that anything other than another rubber stamp approval of Obama's nominee will happen (think of the Elena Kagan SCOTUS confirmation lovefest), putting another far-left ideologue in charge of the EPA to replace the outgoing socialist Jackson.McCarthy's bona fides include "requiring all new power plants to emit less than half" the amount of so-called greenhouse gasses "of what the average facility currently churns out", effectively eliminating the building of any new coal-fired plants at a time that our nation's aging energy infrastructure requires additional cost-effective energy production. Under the new laws, even the most efficient coal plant exceeds the new requirements by 80%, while cleaner burning natural gas plants barely meet the 1000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour limit imposed by McCarthy's office. Nuclear plants can easily meet the requirement, but radical environmentalists place legal roadblocks in the way of every attempt to build a new reactor.In addition, McCarthy has "mislead" Congress (that's lied in non-politico speech) about the link between fuel efficiency standards and "greenhouse gas" emissions from motor vehicles. She'll fit in well with the self-proclaimed "most transparent administration in history".With the exceedingly clueless, big government RINO's controlling the GOP, Gina McCarthy is virtually assured of confirmation. This clears the way for Obama to further his radical agenda, using the EPA as a tool to further weaken the U.S. economy, driving us further down the road to the leftist socialist utopia.

3/26/2013

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is ponying up millions of dollars of his own money to run ads touting mandatory gun registration. Hey! Its his money. He can do what he wants. It's still a free country...for now.

What is disturbing, or comical, depending on your frame of mind, is that the average Joe in the ad, who claims to be a lifelong hunter, says that "with rights comes responsibility", yet he violates some of the most basic gun safety rules while he is saying it.

Can you spot the violations?

1) Finger is on the trigger! Your finger should NEVER be on the trigger unless you are ready to fire the weapon. It should be along side the trigger guard.

2) The bolt action is closed. There is no way to tell if the weapon is loaded. Disturbing if you are touting your responsibility to viewers.

3) The weapon is pointed down range, (with the bolt closed and finger on the trigger). Weapon should either be pointed down at the ground (my preference) or pointed up into the air.

Great job on demonstrating for everyone how NOT to handle a weapon, Mayor!

Obama's 1% Lifestyle
We've all been told that we have to have "some skin in the game". Unbeknownst to us, that means kicking in on sending the Obama's jet-setting around the country and globe on a seeming never-ending number of R&R destinations.
While American families are making plans for "stay-cations",and poring over their budgets trying to make ends meet, Barack Obama and his family have kicked their vacation schedule into high gear. Even as Obama has cancelled White House tours, reportedly to save $18K/week during the sequester, the President and his family have been on a vacation spree, averaging one vacation per month in 2013.

First there was their annual vacation in Hawaii at the first of the year, where the Bamster spent nine days of fun-in-sun golfing, body surfing, and eating shave ice, with his daughters and Michelle.

In February, Michelle headed for the jet-setting Aspen for a ski vacation with Sasha and Malia. At the same time, the President headed to Florida for a golf date with Tiger Woods.

3/25/2013

Nancy Pelosi is concerned that if Congress makes spending cuts, there will be "very little in terms of the public space" left.

Of course, by "cuts", she means a reduction in the amount of increase in spending, but that is a point for another day. There are no actual cuts in spending. Yet, this doesn't prevent Herr Pelosi from doing her impression of Chicken Little, clucking that "the debt-limit ceiling is falling!"

To Pelosi, reining in the size and scope of government is a threat to her and the leftists power and control over the people.

Yes. And that is the point Madame Pelosi.

Pelosi: 'Very Little' Gov't Left If Spending Cuts are Matched with Debt-Limit Increase
March 21, 2013 By Elizabeth Harrington

(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said if a debt limit increase is matched with federal spending cuts later this year, there will be “very little” of the “public space” left.

During a Thursday press conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi was asked about Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) who said any increase in the debt limit when it is met this August should be accompanied with “dollar for dollar” spending cuts.

“Yes, that’s what the Speaker says, and that is certainly in keeping with the anti-government ideologues that are in his caucus,” Pelosi said. “If you keep cutting investments in the future that way in order to do something that should be pro forma here to pass the debt limit, this shouldn’t even be this kind of a debate.”

“I mean, you can have the debate, but there shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind as to what the outcome is about the full faith and credit of the United States of America,” she said.

“If you keep saying ‘dollar for dollar,’ you will have very little in terms of the public space,” Pelosi said.Read More at CNS News

3/22/2013

"Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms—one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended.""Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children." "Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death."George Orwell - "1984"

New York offers $500 reward for reporting illegal gun owners
Published March 21, 2013 FoxNews.com

ALBANY, N.Y. – Nearly a year before signing the nation's most stringent gun control measure into law, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched a hotline that allows state residents to report illegal gun owners in exchange for a $500 reward.

The measure is part of a four-pronged approach established by the governor's office to reduce gun violence in urban communities, according to CBS6Albany.com.

New Yorkers can call the "Gun Tip Line" if they believe someone they know has an illegal gun. Hotline calls are answered by state police and tips are referred to local law enforcement, the station reported.

“This initiative seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor and use their own tax dollars to pay for the $500 reward,” Republican Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin told the station.Read More at Fox News

Florida College Student Expelled After Refusing to Step on ‘Jesus’ By Liberal Professor

The Left lies when it says all it wants is a religiously neutral country. In fact, the Left – which has taken over most of America’s educational institutions – is actively hostile to traditional religion. Ryan Rotela, a junior at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, discovered this the hard way when he was suspended because he refused to write Jesus’ name on a paper taped to the ground and then stomp on Christ’s name.

Speaking to a Florida CBS news station, Rotela explained that Dr. Deandre Poole teaches a class called Intercultural Communications. As one of the exercises he gave the class, Dr. Poole told students to write Jesus’ name in big letters on a sheet of paper, tape the paper to the ground, and then stomp on Jesus’ name. Rotela, a devout Mormon, was horrified:

I said to the professor, ‘With all due respect to your authority as a professor, I just do not believe what you told us to do was appropriate, I believe it was unprofessional, and I was deeply offended by what you told me to do.’…. If you were to stomp on the word ‘Jesus,’ it says that the word has no value.

Deandre Poole

Rotela’s polite, but sincere, objection made no headway with Poole. Instead, when Poole refused to back down, forcing Rotela to speak with Poole’s supervisor, Noemi Marin. Following this conversation, Rotela was suddenly told not to return to Poole’s class.Read More at Mr. Conservative

Outrageous? This is part of the curriculum being pushed by the Obama Administration to be implemented NATIONWIDE and taught to our children. The curriculum, called CSCOPE, is a radical curriculum filled with anti-American subject matter, and includes a comprehensive database to track your children's personal and family information (health information, if there are any firearms in your home), as well as their scholastic work, from pre-school through graduation.

Texas 5th graders being taught that 9/11 was America’s fault
Robert Laurie Friday, March 22, 2013

Every day we’re presented with a new example of modern education indoctrinating our kids. Normally, it’s gun control and global warming. Today, however, it’s 9/11.

According to a report in the Washington Times, 5th graders in Corpus Christi Texas are being shown a video and then being tested on its contents.

One of the questions on the quiz reads “Why might the United States be a target for terrorism?”

The possible multiple choice answers are:
A: Other people just don’t like Americans
B: Decisions we made in the United States have had negative effects on people elsewhere.
C: Terrorists hate everyone
D: None of the above

If you answered “B: Decisions we made in the United States have had negative effects on people elsewhere,” give yourself a gold star and move to the head of the class.Read More at Canada Free Press

We may now have a better understanding of why Barack Obama made his trip to Israel. Al Jazeera is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has called the Turkish Prime Minister to apologize for "operational errors" during the raid on a Gaza flotilla ship in 2010, perhaps using U.S. support to stand with Israel on Iran as leverage.

Weapons seized from "peace activists" of the Free Gaza Flotilla

During the raid, Israeli forces were attacked with metal pipes, slingshots, and bags filled with marbles as they dropped onto the deck from helicopters. During the skirmish, 9 Turkish activists of the so-called "humanitarian" Flotilla were killed, while 7 Israeli Naval commandos were injured.

Posted by Brian
The Obama Administration's and the Dems war on guns, which has created a virtual panic for gun owners across the country, has now had the unintended consequence of affecting the ability of police departments to find enough ammunition for their forces.

Police Departments Beg And Barter For Ammo While DHS Buys Up 1.6 Billion Rounds In Past Year
March 22, 2013 By Gregory Gwyn-Williams, Jr.

The nationwide shortage of ammunition has left many police departments scrambling to get their hands on the necessary rounds - with some even bartering among each other.

Meanwhile, Rep. Timothy Huelskamp (R-Kansas) says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has failed to respond to multiple members of Congress asking why DHS bought more than 1.6 billion rounds in the past year.Read More at CNS News